Oakland, CA: The excuses by local, national, and international celebrities about their horrible first pitches at MLB baseball games were forever stamped as useless this week when a sick, 13 year old boy was able to throw out a better first pitch than most of them combined.

The pitch came Wednesday night to start off a game between the New York Yankees and the Oakland Athletics at the O.co Coliseum. Instead of a person, a rolling robotic arm came out to throw the ceremonial first pitch. At the same time, 1,800 miles away in Kansas City, MO., 13 year old Nick LeGrande stood on the pitcher’s mound of a scaled version of a baseball diamond. LeGrande suffers from a rare blood disorder called severe aplastic anemia, which restricts his ability to travel.

Using an Android application created by Google, LeGrande’s pitching motion controlled the robotic arm, pitching for him halfway across across the United States.

“It’s a fantastic day, not only for technology but for people like Nick whose seemingly impossible dreams can now be made a reality,” stated philanthropist Robert Hastington III. “It’s also a dire day for celebrities, who must now put their horrible first pitches up against the young and sick.”

It was bad enough when celebrities were unable to get anywhere close to home plate when throwing out the first pitch. Some of the best of the worst include:

Gary Dell’Abate, aka Baba Booey of The Howard Stern Show

Mariah Carey

Random, Full-Grown Man

“If you think celebrity first pitches were bad before, just wait,” stated Hollywood publicist Jeanine Morrow. “The pressure of throwing the ball somewhere around home plate was huge. Now people will be thinking, ‘That sick kid did it miles away.’ That’s the sort of pressure that leads to even more hilarious throws.”

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Patrick is a self-proclaimed NFL analyst, critic, and lampooner, but he has also been known to provide commentary on baseball, basketball, hockey, MMA, and even cricket one time when he was delirious.
Patrick is also a major homer when it comes to sports teams in his home state of NY, although he reserves the majority of his mockery to those teams. His heartbreaking teams are the New York Jets (football), New York Knicks (basketball), New York Islanders (hockey), Long Island Lizards (lacrosse), and evens it all out as a fan of the New York Yankees (baseball).